WND EXCLUSIVE

Ex-homosexual's marriage slammed by activists

Michael Glatze's scoffing detractors 'hope for failure'

Art Moore entered the media world as a public relations assistant for the Seattle Mariners and a correspondent covering pro and college sports for Associated Press Radio. He reported for a Chicago-area daily newspaper and was senior news writer for Christianity Today magazine and an editor for Worldwide Newsroom before joining WND shortly after 9/11. He earned a master's degree in communications from Wheaton College.

A former “gay rights” activist who declared six years ago he left homosexuality through the power of God is now celebrating his marriage to a woman, much to the chagrin of homosexual activists who are ridiculing him and his bride via the Web.

“I am so grateful for Rebekah, for God, for His provision, for my new in-laws, for my family which traveled from far and wide to join in our special day, and for the prayers and support that have flooded our way since October,” he writes.

As WND reported in 2007, Glatze become a frequent source for major media covering the homosexual movement as founding editor of Young Gay America magazine before a radical change in his life that he says began with inner “promptings” he now attributes to God.

Since then, he’s been closely watched by homosexual-rights activists such as Wayne Besen, founder and executive director of Truth Wins Out. Besen’s non-profit declares its aim is to “demolish the very foundation of anti-gay prejudice,” and he asks for help to “uncover the next ‘ex-gay’ swindle.”

“Apparently, this happened for publicity hound Michael Glatze, who married his prop, er bride, Rebekah, on October 26,” writes Besen, author of the book “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth.”

He linked to wedding photos of Glatze wearing “fundie drag,” a reference to Glatze’s evangelical Christian faith, which led him to attend a Bible school in Wyoming.

“The victim is attractive and seems rather sweet. I hope she knows what she’s getting into,” Besen writes of Glatze’s wife.

“In what other area of life do you see this?” he asked in an interview with WND. “Somebody tries to overcome drugs and falls back, and you say, ‘That’s it, nobody can change.’”

LaBarbera said the only people “who are not celebrating this marriage of a guy who was once involved in homosexuality are the homosexual radicals like Wayne Besen.”

“They are basically celebrating failure,” he said. “They’re all about focusing on the failures, because they can’t admit that homosexual identity and behavior is something you can change.”

LaBarbera said that while some who have declared themselves to be ex-”gay” have gone back to their old ways, Glatze represents many more success stories that don’t receive publicity.

Unfortunately, he said the establishment media focuses on messengers like Besen.

“I think if the average person knew about Michael Glatze, their whole view of the homosexual issue would change,” LaBarbera told WND. “And maybe that’s why people like Besen are so desperate to do anything they can to ridicule, to demonize, to mock, to deny that they even exist.”

He said homosexual activists don’t live up to their appeals for “dignity” and “tolerance.”

“Everything they once said they stood for, they are now doing the opposite toward ex-gays,” LaBarbera said.

‘People have called me a lot of things’

In his letter to his critics, Glatze says he and he new bride don’t want to become “political pawns.”

“I have never called myself an ‘ex-gay,’ though people have called me that,” he writes. “But, then again, people have called me a lot of things on account of the fact that I left homosexuality a few years back and decided that I felt more comfortable living heterosexually.”

Glatze explains he wanted to “make a little ‘shout out’ to all of the angry homosexuals in our country who are currently spreading all sorts of hate and aggression on pro-homosexual blogs.”

Michael and Rebekah Glatze

“Look, I am not interested in defending myself. I don’t really need to do that,” he writes. “I understand your plight, your point-of-view. I understand the desire to want me to be crazy, or lost in my head and mind, or confused. I understand that it would be just easier if I didn’t exist, or I would just crawl into a hole somewhere and die. But I’m not going to do that.”

In an plea for his and his wife’s safety, he asks that “instead of plotting my death, you may consider the possibility that I do have a legitimate right to life and a legitimate right to my own” decisions.

He says that since so many have commented on his wedding — photos from his personal account meant only for family and friends were widely distributed — he wants to make it clear that “I am not here to ‘force my agenda’ or my ‘lifestyle’ on anyone else.”

“I am here to live a good, God-honoring life,” he said. “And, as a Christian, I would be a liar if I didn’t tell people who God is, what He has done in my life and how He continues to provide for me in ways that are more numerous than I can count.”

‘No safer place than Bible school’

In a 2007 interview with WND, Glatze said he became aware of homosexual feelings at about the age of 14 and publicly declared himself “gay” at age 20. After a decade in which his leadership role in the homosexual activist world grew – but alongside it, a mysterious inner conflict – he said he finally was “liberated.”

After becoming editor of Young Gay America magazine at age 22, Glatze received numerous awards and recognition, including the National Role Model Award from the major homosexual-rights organization Equality Forum. Media gravitated toward him, leading to appearances on PBS television and MSNBC and quotes in a cover story in Time magazine called “The Battle Over Gay Teens.”

He produced, with the help of PBS affiliates and Equality Forum, the first major documentary film to address homosexual teen suicide, “Jim In Bold,” which toured the world and received numerous “best in festival” awards. Young Gay America’s photo exhibit, telling the story of young people across North America, toured Europe, Canada and parts of the U.S.

Benoit Denizet-Lewis concluded: “As I drove back to my hotel that night, I wondered if I would ever hear from Michael again. Might he call me someday to say that he was gay after all, and that his years as an ex-gay were just another pit stop in his lifelong pursuit of truth?

“It’s possible, but I doubt it will happen anytime soon,” Denizet-Lewis wrote.

“For an ex-gay intent on staying that way, there are few safer places in the world than a Bible school in Wyoming.”